Ted Baxter lives

Boy Fogle does a few things well at The Palmetto Scoop- as President Eisenhower said of Vice President Nixon, give me a week and I'm sure I can think of what- but empathy just isn't on the list. There's a strained, contrived feel to it whenever he tries to pull it off, especially in what he thinks of women. Witness the last two paragraphs of his account of the Governor's Holiday Open House:

As I said on Twitter earlier, if I were Mark Sanford and my wife looked at me like Jenny did in this photo by the AP’s Brett Flashnick, I would immediately hire a food taster and car starter. Immediately.

I think Rasputin had one and he and Sanford seem to have a lot in common.

Let's parse those two graphs, eh?

"I think Rasputin had one..."

Well, which? A wife? A food taster? A car starter?

He did have a wife, whom he married in 1889 and largely abandoned after 1901 and having fathered an illegitimate child, so she probably shot him a look now and again before he decamped. He doesn't seem to have had a food taster, though, as he was poisoned with cakes and wine in December, 1916 (the cyanide didn't quite do the job, so he was then beaten, shot four times and then drowned).

Rasputin's relationship with cars seems to have been limited. He was driven in one to be dumped in the river by his killers, though.

Now the capper: "he [Rasputin] and Sanford seem to have a lot in common."

Oh? A semiliterate 19th century peasant turned religious mystic who ended up spiritual advistor to the royal family of Russia and a South Carolina businessman turned politician who had an affair with a woman in South America and whose wife looked mean at him? 

A commenter to the post- who was at the event, called McLovin' out on not knowing what he was talking about (nothing new about that):

I personally covered this event for WIS-TV last night. This one, single photograph is a misrepresentation of Mrs. Sanfords demeanor during this cheerful event. She was smiling, greeting guests and truly enjoying an evening inside this beautifully decorated home. I hope the readers of your blog are not influenced by a one milli-second snapshot that depicts the opposite. In an interview with me, Mrs Sanford said she planned to follow with special holiday events like baking cookies and making a homemade fudge sauce, and Governor Sanford reflected on when his family used to cut down their own tree from their farm. They were delightful.. Not sneering at each other. Come on Scoop…

Boy's response?

Come on Hannah… Unhappy people are the most likely to bake cookies and make fudge sauce. That’s why they’re called comfort foods. You’ve got to read between the lines!